And Miles to Go Before I Sleep
by lady of scarlet
Summary: July 1996, Winslow, Arizona. Mulder and Scully fly out to rural Arizona to investigate a series of bizarre deaths. The agents learn too late the only rule of the game: don't fall asleep. XFBigBang, Gen, Casefic.
1. The Woods Are Lovely

**Rating:** FRT/PG-13, Gen partner/friendship-focused. Humor/Angst/Drama.  
**Warnings:** Language, violence, autopsies, nothing serious.  
**Fandom:** X-Files Casefic circa end of season 3, beginning of season 4.  
**Final Word Count:** 20,000~

**A/N:** Written for **xf_bigbang** 2010. Thanks to **oroburos69** for the endless support, and **bsg_stardust** for the beta and the beautiful artwork.  
**Disclaimer:** Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen and Fox own the X-Files and everything related to it; I do not, nor do I claim to, nor am I in anyway affiliated with them. No copyright infringement is intended and no profit is being made. Robert Frost's 1923 poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is to be credited for the title. Though, for the record, this fic is far from snowy.

_The woods are lovely, dark and deep.  
But I have promises to keep,  
And miles to go before I sleep,  
And miles to go before I sleep.  
- Robert Frost_

…

_Unknown Time  
Unknown Location_

It was the silence that finally woke her.

Scully shifted uncomfortably, suddenly aware of a seizing pain in her neck. She straightened, tilting her head side-to-side in attempt to relieve her muscles. She felt as though she'd fallen asleep on a sidewalk. The motel beds were bad, but this…

She blinked into the darkness.

Oh.

Her heart rate ratcheted up as her location dawned on her.

She was still in the car.

Scully ran her hand along the edge of the frayed cloth seat of the six year old Mitsubishi Précis they'd rented. She could hardly see anything, but it was definitely the car and her neck was definitely suffering the consequences of falling asleep against the door.

Her eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness, but she didn't need her sight to know that something was very, very wrong.

She stilled, listening. The staccato beat of rain had disappeared.

So it had stopped raining. Had to happen eventually.

Scully reached down and released her seatbelt, letting it snap back into place over her shoulder. She rubbed at her eyes as confusion washed over her.

Why the hell was she still in the car?

She glanced around, double-checking the tiny backseat for her partner.

He'd left her here.

He'd actually left her asleep in a car, in the middle of a case, in the middle of the goddamn desert. A tendril of indignation wrapped itself around her thoughts for a moment before logic reasserted itself. No, he couldn't have. That didn't make any sense. She'd kill him; he knew she'd kill him. It was absurd.

The engine was silent. She reached blindly over to the steering wheel, feeling the keys still in the ignition. The keychain clinked against the plastic dashboard as she twisted repeatedly.

Frustrated, she climbed over to the driver's seat for more leverage, but it didn't make any difference. Not even a sputter. No light, no noise, nothing. Shit.

Scully felt around for her bag, her phone, case files, maps, anything. Her fingers met with nothing but the multi-textured contours of the vehicle's interior.

She unlocked the door and pushed it open. Sand shifted beneath her feet. She stood, bracing herself against the car to work the stiffness from her legs. She hadn't exactly been thrilled about the stakeout Mulder had insisted on, but he wouldn't just wander off into the desert without even waking her.

The night was disconcertingly still.

"Mulder?" she tried.

She felt exposed just standing there, unable to see anything around her.

Scully sat back down, realising with the change in position that part of her earlier discomfort had come from the gun digging into her hip. She patted her side, reassured by the presence of her weapon, and came into contact with the flashlight that rested right beside it. She nearly laughed aloud at her foolishness and quickly pulled it out, rising again from the low seat.

The world leapt into view as she swept the light across the earth, taking in her surroundings. Or rather, the lack thereof. She didn't know what she expected to find out here. Sand was really the extent of her options.

The scent of creosote bushes, pungent from the rain when they'd left earlier, was now nearly absent. She ran the beam over the car, finding no evidence of the torrential downpour they'd been driving through for—she checked her watch. Nine o'clock? That couldn't be right. She tapped her nail against the glass, then held it to her ear.

Her confusion twisted into frustration.

"Mulder?" she shouted. Her voice didn't even seem to carry, as though the desert had swallowed it up.

Scully slammed the door shut and walked around to the front of the vehicle. The light revealed the road they'd been investigating, and to her left the lightly-packed earth that travelled over it—a combination that, when she tilted her head and squinted, constituted Mulder's "crossroad."

Okay, so she wasn't exactly in the middle of nowhere. Just a few miles to the east of nowhere. She considered her options. The second "road" would probably lead to fruitless and potentially deadly hours of wandering through the Arizona desert. The main one would eventually bring her back to civilization.

Scully stepped out onto the road. She'd have a better chance at flagging down a passing motorist if she headed north, up to Winslow. But she may have a better chance at finding her partner if she headed back to the motel.

If only she knew which direction she was facing. Scully glanced at the even ground, seeing no hint of footprints or signs of disturbance. The wind must have swept away any traces.

She sighed, rubbing her neck and trying to push down the dread that blossomed in her chest.

If Mulder wasn't here, she'd just have to find him. And if he wasn't already in danger, he would be when she caught up with him. Scully turned right and started walking.

The flashlight illuminated her path, brightening the road ahead and thinning as it reached out into the night. She brushed the light over the ground, left and right, examining the edges of the road as she walked.

The yellow glint of eyes in the distance caught suddenly in the beam.

Scully halted, and dread plunged into fear.

She swung the light back toward the flash that had caught her attention, but saw only an endless expanse of sand and shadows. Scully stared into the desert for several hushed minutes, unable to shake the feeling that the desert was staring back at her.

…

_Monday  
July 29th, 1996_

_J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building  
Washington, D.C.  
8:14 a.m. _

"Arizona? Mulder, while I am willing to concede that the circumstances seem odd, are you honestly hoping that the location will slip my notice?"

Mulder glanced up from his struggle to fix the slide projector. A small screw rolled onto the carpet at his feet. "What about it? I hear Winslow's beautiful this time of year."

His attempt to act innocent was impressive. She almost believed his sincerity. "Yes, I'm sure it is. And the fact that it's right by a fifty thousand year old meteorite crater has absolutely no influence whatsoever on your interest in this case?"

"Is it? Huh. What a lucky coincidence." Mulder replaced a slide and the screen lit up.

Scully shook her head, wrapping her hands around her warm coffee cup. She sipped experimentally, pleased when it didn't burn her tongue.

Skimming through the preliminary report on the way here and a short, rather unpleasant, three a.m. phone call on the matter had roughly laid out the case. Multiple bodies. Bizarre patterns of mutilation. Indications of foul play, with no conclusive evidence.

But Scully knew he was holding something back.

Mulder's slideshow, currently featuring an autopsy photo of the deceased traveler Marcy Beckwith, was enough to at least make her consider his argument.

"Three people so far have turned up dead along this road, all within no more than a mile of each other," Mulder narrated, flipping through slides. A panoramic shot of a desert road filled the screen.

Scully tilted her head, taking in the barren landscape the picture presented. Three victims, same location. She supposed she could see what had piqued her partner's interest in this case. "At the same time?"

Mulder frowned slightly. "Well, no. The first victim was four years ago, the second about two and a half, and the third eight months ago. The most recent body was recovered yesterday."

Ah, of course. The threads of his logic grew increasingly tenuous. "I thought you said there were three bodies?"

"There are," he replied, not looking up from the projector. "The first victim survived the attack. Incidentally, she'll be our first stop."

"Mulder, people do occasionally meet a tragic end in a similar location over a long period of time. That doesn't automatically imply a connection. If anything, it's evidence that the local municipality needs to consider fixing up that road."

Scully glanced down at the pile of paperwork next to her. Well, not a pile, really, so much as an explosion of folders that had massacred themselves on Mulder's desk. And this was the to do pile, no less. She ran her fingers along the edge of a folder.

"It's not the road, Scully—well, it is the road, but it's not just the road. There's something seriously—"

"Did you leave this here from last week?" Scully waved a report in the air. "Skinner asked for this last Wednesday. Mulder, you told me it was done." No wonder Mulder had been monopolizing the phone lines lately, Skinner must have been trying to track him down for days.

"I was just about to look at that," Mulder defended, taking the paper from her. "But I was a little distracted by this very real and very pressing case. I mean, did you even look at these photos?"

He waved his hand at the screen dramatically.

Scully raised an eyebrow in answer.

"The victimology is a bit broad, sure," he admitted. "But the method? You can't deny the similarities."

Broad was an understatement.

Ms. Beckwith was a fifty-three year old insurance broker, a local, no priors. James Franklin, twenty-six and hailing from Chicago, drove long-haul trucks across the Midwest. Leon Jacob, at forty, traveled state-to-state selling "dream vacations" and left a lengthy trail of fraud-related arrest warrants in his wake. The only thing these people had in common was bad luck.

Scully sifted through the remaining documents on Mulder's desk. "March? You haven't filed these since March?"

She didn't even know why she was surprised. God, this place was a mess. She was nearly desperate enough to agree with him just so she could be free of the unyielding clutter.

"That is hardly the point here, Scully."

A point. Yes, there was supposed to be a point here. "Right," she said, motioning for him to continue.

"I haven't even gotten to the best part," Mulder stated eagerly. "All three victims found in their locked vehicles were covered in jagged cuts."

A crime scene photograph appeared, showing the heavyset salesman collapsed against the steering wheel of a sleek grey sedan. Thick lacerations stretched from his jaw line to his collarbone and crisscrossed partway down.

Another was prominently displayed across his one visible forearm which, while already bloody and grotesque, looked to have been badly burned as well. The flesh was bright red and blistered from the back of his hand up to the edge of his rolled-up shirtsleeve.

Mulder watched her expectantly. Waiting, as was his practice, for her refutation. Scully wouldn't want to disappoint him.

Besides, from what she could tell, the case was far from an X-File. Disturbing, yes. Paranormal? She had no reason to suspect as much. God only knew what outlandish theory he was currently entertaining.

She peered closely at the wounds in the photograph. "Wild animal?"

"That's what the coroner believes."

"And you don't," Scully guessed. "Mulder, I'm inclined to agree with the coroner's analysis. Maybe these people were attacked in the desert and took refuge in their cars, only to later succumb to their injuries."

Mulder grinned. "Ah, but what that very logical theory can't manage to explain is how these injuries appeared all over the bodies without a single tear in clothing. Not to mention, the wounds were all shallow and the loss of blood was minimal. Even if this was the work of an animal, it wasn't what killed them."

"Huh," Scully muttered. Mulder's little presentation was having its intended effect. The case was hardly paranormal, certainly, but there was definitely something going on. She hated to give him the satisfaction, but..."I wouldn't mind taking a closer look at the body," Scully admitted. "An 'indeterminable cause of death,' in my experience, more often than not suggests a certain degree of ineptitude on the pathologist's part."

"Or lack of imagination," Mulder helpfully supplied. "Latest body's still on ice at the morgue. If we hurry we can make the nine-thirty flight."

Scully glanced at her watch. Twenty past eight.

She already had her bag packed. Still, she had to know exactly what she would be getting herself into here. Mulder hadn't so much as hinted at his hypothesis, not even over the phone.

He grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair, swinging it over his shoulder. "Well, are you coming?"

"Not until you tell me what this is really about," Scully resolved.

"I don't know what you mean, Scully." He was being evasive. Never a good sign. Mulder sighed after a moment. "I want you to see the place before you write it off."

Scully wasn't quite sure if she should be offended by that. She didn't answer, but waited for him to continue.

Mulder dropped into his chair and tossed his jacket across the messy desk. Papers rustled as he leaned forward and looked up at her.

"Robert Johnson," Mulder started, "the famous Delta blues musician of the thirties, was rumored to have sold his soul to the devil at a crossroad somewhere in Mississippi, in exchange for his ability to play the guitar. Similar accounts have been found all over the world. The apparition ranges between a malevolent demon or trickster god to a benevolent spiritual teacher, an 'opener of the way' between this world and the next."

He paused, and she lifted an eyebrow so slightly that, if they weren't able to read each other so well, she doubted he would have even noticed. She could see his mind working away, analyzing her body language while forming and reforming his strategy.

Mulder continued, his voice roughened with an edge of determination, "Animals, particularly black dogs, are cited as common forms in which the apparition appears to its petitioner. The legends and oral histories conflict, but the essence of the stories is always the same. These victims were all found in the same area, a half mile in any direction surrounding a crossroad. They were attacked, Scully. Viciously. By a wild animal? Maybe. But in this case, I don't think it's just any animal."

"A black dog?" Scully surmised. "An invisible, crossroad-wandering, soul-eating, ghost dog."

"I was thinking more like a hellhound, actually."

"That does sound more ominous."

"You think it's crazy."

"When has that ever stopped you?" Scully countered.

Mulder smirked, apparently reminded of the fact that he was impervious to logical arguments. "Good point."

Scully picked up her bag and swung open the door. "Well, Mulder, are you coming?"

...

_Unknown Time  
Unknown Location_

No one was coming.

Scully trudged along the road, walking for—well, if her watch could have been bothered to track the passage of time correctly, she'd have had a better idea how long she'd been out here.

Minutes. Hours. Days. Probably not days, she considered. But she'd been physically exhausted even before Mulder's little excursion, and the seemingly endless walking certainly wasn't helping.

No one had driven by.

Not even a headlight flickered in the distance.

The beam of Scully's flashlight bounced with her steps, spreading like oil over the dirt but revealing nothing.

Nothing but her, that is. She glanced around, suddenly all too aware that she was the only thing visible for miles. Scully flicked off the light and let the shadows swallow her.

…

_Monday  
July 29th, 1996_

_En-Route from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport  
Phoenix, Arizona  
6:15 p.m._

Bustling streets lined with lush palm trees slowly vanished as they departed the city. Cacti and gravel shifted into an infinite stretch of sand, spotted with clumps of bear grass and desert broom.

The heat had grown more and more stifling as the afternoon sun beat down on their rental. Mulder fiddled unsuccessfully with the air-conditioning for a few miles before he gave up and rolled his window down. Hot desert air rushed loudly through the car, but it was a welcome reprieve.

Scully tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear, adjusting her sunglasses as she eased onto their exit. She glanced over at Mulder occasionally, trying to gauge his mood as the sun gradually slipped below the horizon. Miles in the distance, the wispy mirage of far off mountains made it seem as though they were standing still. They had run out of sunlight by the time they reached the interstate.

The I-17 merged seamlessly with the I-40 and the railroad travelled alongside them, twisting occasionally out of sight and looping back in again.

They didn't talk—hadn't talked for the last hour or so. Mulder was brooding in the seat beside her. His enthusiasm had died down after the long and restless plane ride. The airline having lost his luggage during their layover in Orange County hadn't improved his mood.

Scully, however, was beginning to enjoy herself. Arizona really was beautiful this time of year, and the Grand Canyon state had her reminiscing about childhood vacations to said canyon, and how proud she had been to be the only one of her siblings willing to hike down to the bottom with Ahab.

Too bad they wouldn't be in the area. It had been years. Too many years.

Mulder left an impressive trail of sunflower seed shells down the I-40, presumably as a proactive measure in case they should lose their way and have to retrace their path.

Scully reached over to twist the radio dial, landing eventually on a news station with poor reception. She turned the volume down until the roar of the engine and the rushing air had engulfed it.

"Want some?" Mulder asked, offering a handful of sunflower seeds.

She shook her head. One trail of seeds was more than enough. Scully looked over at him as he leaned against the door, idly picking out seeds from his bag.

He still seemed a bit sullen about the baggage thing, but overall he took it surprisingly well.  
Especially seeing as he'd have virtually nothing but the miniature toiletries they'd picked up on their way out of the airport. And the sunflower seeds.

Mulder fidgeted in his seat, turning to her as though he wanted to say something more, but stopping short of opening his mouth. He looked back out the window.

"So why the sudden interest in this case?" Scully asked. "Someone tip you off?"

"Old friend. Well, friend of a friend, really. The Navajo county sheriff called me up last night. I guess they finally had one body too many."

"We were invited, right?"

"Completely by-the-book, I swear. Besides, they were having jurisdictional issues since the road stretches between two counties. It'd still be our case if we wanted it," he replied, returning to his sunflower seeds.

That did sound by-the-book. She didn't think Mulder had even read the book. Perhaps he had and saving up his knowledge of the rules so he could more effectively disregard them at some inopportune point in the future. But Scully would take what she could get. One case without mounds of explanatory paperwork would be a treat.

The subtle play of passing headlights across the dashboard and over her partner's still form became a quiet distraction. She considered pulling off the road for a while, stretching, maybe letting Mulder drive the rest of the way.

The interstate had reached a status of not-quite-busy but not-quite-dead. A few oncoming cars passed them, but no one had been behind them for a long while. A peculiar uneasiness had built up in her stomach, slowly writhing and coiling there.

The rear-view mirror caught occasional glimpses of crimson taillights and the tiny bursts of civilization that spotted the side of the road every forty miles or so, where travelers had succumbed to exhaustion and taken a break at a truck-stop.

She glanced at her partner. He probably needed some rest just as much as she did, but his eyes hadn't drifted shut once on the trip so far.

The radio hummed soft and low, jumping between stations and divided every so often by static.

It seemed like hours before they finally made it to Winslow and turned off the highway. Scully checked her watch. It had been hours. Any longer and she'd fall asleep at the wheel.

"You need to go straight," Mulder insisted.

"I thought we had a turn coming up?"

"Not for..." he trailed off, running his index finger down and across a creased roadmap on his lap. "About two more miles. I'll know it when I see it," he reassured her.

The car rumbled with displeasure, its tires no longer treated to the consistent traction and smooth surface of asphalt. A cloud of loose sand stirred around them, obscuring Scully's vision.

The earth was parched.

She licked her lips.

Mulder rolled his window up. The rental's A/C was still proving less than effective, merely stirring the hot interior air and inviting the earthy scent of dust clouds inside.

"There!" Mulder exclaimed, pointing. Scully eased the car to hasty stop, now fully alert. "Turn left. Should only be a mile to go."

The beige stucco of the motel blended with its surroundings so closely in color that she didn't even notice the place until they'd closed in on it.

There was a Texaco gas station across the street, its lights still bright and inviting. The motel, on the other hand, looked empty. An unlit sign advertised their location to be The Southern Belle Motel, though it was neither southern nor particularly attractive. Vacancy, it seemed, could be left to the visitor's best guess.

They pulled into the parking lot, next to what she assumed was the motel office—a little building set apart from a two-story row of adjoined rooms and attached to the side of a slightly larger, similarly camouflaged house. Various semi and pickup trucks were parked along the road in a scattered alignment with stones that served as place-markers.

They stepped out of the car. Without the engine noise, the silence was pronounced. "Are you sure this is it?" Scully asked.

"Positive."

Her legs ached from the car ride. She stretched. The heat, even now, was verging on unbearable, and it had dropped at least ten degrees since the sun had set. Scully could tell this was going to be a long trip.

Mulder walked up to the door of the small house, knocked twice, then waited. Scully joined him on the cement pad that served as a patio.

There was no movement inside.

Scully sighed. They'd passed at least two perfectly decent looking hotels just going through the city limits, but no, they had to drive out to the middle of nowhere to find some rundown Route-66 reject older than she was. If she had to drive another hour tonight, just to—

The door flew open when Mulder raised his hand to knock again, revealing an elderly woman in a nightgown, clutching a shotgun.

"The hell do you want?" she demanded.

Scully's hand instinctively fell to rest on her own weapon. Mulder held his hands up in surrender.

"Ma'am," he said slowly, sounding as unsure as Scully felt, "I'm Agent Mulder, with the FBI. This is my partner, Agent Scully. We were invited here."

The woman stared at them in the darkness then reached over and flicked the light on. Insects swarmed around it.

"Let me see your badge," she said.

Mulder and Scully exchanged a confused glance. He held his credentials out to her.

"Fox Mulder," she read, looking up at him suspiciously. "You expect me to believe this is real, son?"

Scully abandoned her gun and handed the woman her ID. "He's telling the truth, ma'am. We're with the FBI and we'd like to speak to a George Bell."

She scoffed, but lowered the shotgun. "George?" she shouted. A tall man barreled through a doorway to their right. The woman turned back to them. "Martha Bell," she introduced herself. "I've owned this establishment for forty years and never had any F-B-I coming around. Fox," she mused, testing out the name and wandering off.

The man stepped in front of them, motioning them inside. "Sorry about that. George, George Bell. This is my wife, Cindy," Mr. Bell pointed to a woman sitting on a long couch in the adjacent living room. "And, well, you've already met my mother."

Mr. Bell extended a callused hand and Scully reciprocated, trying not to stare at the man's baseball cap.

Mulder studiously avoided her gaze.

The holographic plastic appliqué of a little green man with a lawnmower wasn't winning the case any credibility.

"It was good of you to come all this way," Mrs. Bell said, standing to greet them. "I must have told Martha five times you were coming, but, well..." She chuckled. "Here," she offered, holding out two sets of keys, "your rooms are numbers five and six, lower level on the far right. If you'd rather be on the second-story, though, just let me know. Plenty of rooms to go around. We usually get a lot of truckers stopping over here for the night on their way to state road eighty-seven, but not as much during the summer. Nobody can stand driving in this heat for too long."

"The weather is the least of their concerns," Mr. Bell explained. "We're lucky to get anybody passing through here when folks keep getting killed on the way in. Animal Control came around here first, then Fish and Wildlife were called in to investigate. Nothing turned up. Sheriff said you all were professionals in stuff like this. You got any leads on this thing, Agents?"

"George," his wife admonished, "can't you see they're tired? Go on and get a good night's sleep." She ushered them out.

Scully couldn't think of anything she'd rather do more. They nodded their thanks and left.

The place was surreal. Maybe she had fallen asleep at the wheel after all.

"They seem nice," Mulder commented.

"Nice. Sure. I'd like to get this case cleared up sooner, rather than later. We can start early. Hopefully we'll manage to avoid anymore close encounters with volatile seniors." Scully grabbed her luggage from the trunk, slamming it shut.

They made their way toward the dark stretch of motel rooms.

"Are you going to be okay without any change of clothes?" Scully asked.

"Why, do you have something to loan me?" he teased.

She took that as an affirmative. "Good night, Mulder," she said, opening a door with the number six embellished in the wood.

"Night, Scully," he returned.

The air stirred lethargically in Scully's motel room, slightly humid thanks to a swamp cooler propped up by the window, which did little to affect the temperature or level of comfort the room afforded. She locked the door and flicked on the light.

This was a new record for Mulder.

She'd never seen a motel room quite this sickeningly green. The carpet, the curtains, the bedding. Even the wallpaper sported tiny green palm trees complimented by a variety of green and yellow cacti. How he found such accommodations was beyond her.

A long dresser was positioned below the room's only window, cluttered with small objects and an ancient looking television. A flowery, geographically-inappropriate hurricane candle completed the décor.

Scully reached over the dresser to pull the sun-bleached curtains closed, nearly knocking over an empty ashtray and box of matches in the process.

She set her bag on a low table and, regardless of hygienic concerns and the near certainty of infestation, dropped heavily onto the bed.

After staring at the uniform road for three and a half hours, she could still see the broken white lines painted on the asphalt when she closed her eyes. The sensation of the road disappearing beneath her as she laid still invoked a nauseating vertigo.

...

_Unknown Time  
Unknown Location_

There was no moon in the sky, only a light scattering of stars for illumination.

Scully could only see three or four feet in front of her, and navigated with cautious and deliberate steps, careful to stay on the packed dirt road.

To stray would lead her off somewhere wandering the desert. At night. Alone. The ground shifted loosely beneath her and she quickly righted herself, sidestepping back onto the road.

She'd been trying, but hadn't been able to locate any landmarks to lend her some direction. The night was too dark, the stars too dull. A slow burn traveled up her calves.

The temperature had been closing in on ninety-five by mid afternoon, but with the sun's departure the desert was finally granted some respite. Her skin was still uncomfortably dry and hot, but it was nowhere near as sweltering as it had been in daylight.

The creosote bushes rustled as the wind picked up, a soft whispering sound reminiscent of the radio static Mulder insisted on listening to. Intertwined with the movements of the wind across the desert plains were the small sounds of creatures shuffling through the sand.

Rattle snakes were a problem in this area. She had no idea what else was out there, watching, though her mind offered no shortage of possibilities. Potentially a vicious wild animal fond of shredding people, Scully reminded herself. Or one of Mulder's ridiculous black dogs which, though laughable in theory, was not something she had any desire to encounter.

She picked up her pace. A little light would be helpful, but she still wasn't willing to disclose her location to whatever or whoever may want to keep an eye on her.

The longer Scully walked, the more convinced she became that she had chosen the wrong direction. She considered backtracking, but hesitated when she saw something.

She stumbled toward the shadowy structure, only half certain it was really there.

If Mulder had gone looking for help, this would be the most logical destination. The dirt swirled around her feet as she walked and a gust of wind brushed across the flat land.

She reached her hand out and was relieved to be met with the rough texture of plaster against her fingertips.

If this was the east edge, there should be a door only a few feet away. She ran her hand along the wall to guide her. A little more. She was certain there had been more doors here.

The wall dropped away and she searched for a handle. Locked. Scully rattled the doorknob in frustration, banging on the wood with her fists.

"Hello? Mulder?"

Only the wind replied, twisting around her and lifting loose strands of her hair.

She searched her pockets, unable to locate her motel room key. Had she left it in the car? She didn't have time for this.

Scully inhaled the night air deeply, trying to clear her head.

The important thing was not to panic. Panic would be pointless and completely unhelpful. No, she just needed to calm down and think.

Mulder wouldn't have left her in the car. Probably. It wasn't unheard of for him to up and wander off in the middle of a case—even the middle of a sentence. But even if he had, he would have a good reason.

Perhaps there had been an accident and he'd gone to get help. But she hadn't noticed any obvious damage to the vehicle, though she wasn't looking for it, or any obvious damage to herself. No accident, then.

In that case, he must have been taken against his will.

Scully leaned against the locked door, considering the circumstances.

She needed to get into her room, and that was going to require a key. She stalked across the empty parking lot toward the main office and pounded on the door. When no one answered, she let herself in.

"Mr. and Mrs. Bell?" she shouted. "Martha?"

The place was silent. Scully crossed the threshold and tried the light switch. It clicked but did nothing. The bulb must have burnt out. She pulled the flashlight from her waist and flicked it on, illuminating the tiny room.

Scully ran her hand across the smooth wood tabletop of the front desk, leaving a trail of smudged dust behind.

The quiet was eerie and every small sound had her further on edge. It looked as though a dust storm had rolled through, sending dirt and debris into every corner of the room.

The doors and windows must have been left open at some point, but now they were all securely shut.

There was no one here. The motel's inhabitants seemed to have disappeared with the storm.

Now she was panicking.

…


	2. Dark and Deep

…

_Tuesday  
July 30th, 1996_

_The Southern Belle Motel  
Southeast Coconino County, Arizona  
6:03 a.m._

The sun had barely risen when there was a knock on her door. Scully considered ignoring it. The knock came again, followed by her name.

Mulder. Of course.

She shuffled across the room, unlocked the door, then turned right back toward the bed. Mulder entered a moment after. Her head throbbed.

"Thought you wanted an early morning?" he asked sheepishly.

Had she? It did sound like something she'd say. Damn it.

"If you want to stay in bed, I can go talk to the owners. They've been up since dawn. That shotgun-lady, Martha? She brought me cookies this morning," Mulder said, sitting at the end of her bed. "It was bizarre. I think she meant it as a peace offering."

Scully turned over to look at him. "I didn't get any cookies." The idea of cookies wasn't all that appealing right now, actually. The thought of eating combined with the unrelenting hideousness of the room's wallpaper had her feeling queasy.

"I guess she just doesn't like you as much," he offered.

She hit him with a pillow. "Fine, I'll be right out. Five minutes."

Twenty minutes later Mulder and Scully were sitting in the small living room across from Mr. and Mrs. Bell. Mulder's newest admirer sat close beside him. The rose-colored sofa looked like it was as old as the house, but the place was well kept and well lived in.

A variety of knickknack's adorned the side tables. Candles, a magazine, a stuffed penguin. She glanced at the magazine again, realizing for the first time that its niggling familiarity was due to its authors. The Lone Gunman. She wasn't even surprised.

"—told them I'd never seen anything like it before. So bright, the whole sky lit up. I'll tell you, there are some strange goings-on in these parts," Mr. Bell explained.

Mrs. Bell rolled her eyes. "Would you like some more coffee?" she offered. "George, go get them some more coffee."

Scully turned to the petite woman. "Mrs. Bell—"

"Cindy. Please."

"Cindy," Scully began, "my partner mentioned that you and your husband had personally encountered the animal you believe to be responsible for these attacks. Did you see what it looked like?"

"No, I didn't. George and Sydney, my daughter, they were alone when it happened, just a mile up the road there."

Mr. Bell—George, Scully reminded herself—returned to the table with a pot of coffee.

"If you don't mind, we'd like to talk to her," Mulder requested. He had been oddly silent this morning.

George fidgeted with the edge of a pink throw pillow. "'fraid that isn't possible."

"Here," Cindy said, standing, "let me show you to her room. Maybe it will help you to see her, you know, get a better idea of the situation."

Given that there were only three bodies, Scully had assumed the first victim Mulder mentioned had somehow gotten away. Perhaps she hadn't fared so well after all.

It was times like these that she wished Mulder didn't drag her into things half-cocked and partially blind. Cindy led them up a narrow flight of stairs leading off the kitchen to what consisted of the second story of the house.

Scully was hit by a pleasant burst of cold air when the door at the end of the hallway opened up. The whir of electric fans carried loudly from the room.

Cindy moved aside to let them enter, revealing as she did so the pallid fifteen year old Mulder had mentioned in passing. Their first stop. The only real, tangible lead they had to go on.

She glanced at her partner. He seemed as startled as she was.

"I'm sorry we didn't tell you over the phone, Agent Mulder," Cindy said. She stared resolutely at the carpet before her eyes darted to her daughter, then the window. "It's just...we weren't sure you would come if you knew. I mean, she can't give you any answers. Not really. But we were hoping you could give us some."

"Sydney's comatose?" Scully asked, moving toward the single bed in the middle of the small room. A ventilator breathed for the girl, a low hum beneath the noisy fans.

Cindy nodded, rearranging her daughter's pillows. Footsteps sounded on the stairs behind them.

"If you don't mind, I'd like to take a look at her charts. I'm a medical doctor."

"Of course," Cindy agreed, quickly handing her a pile of papers from the nightstand. "She has home care. We administer all of her medications. Her physician stops by nearly every day to check up on her. Nothing ever changes. After we waited so long for her to wake up at the hospital, they eventually agreed to let us bring her home. It's expensive, but this way she's never alone."

Scully skimmed through the girl's charts. "How long has she been like this?"

"Since the night of the attack. We were hoping that, well, if maybe you caught this thing you might find a way to help her. The doctors all say there's nothing they can do for her, but there has to be. I can't stand the thought of her suffering like this forever. But now, with that man who died, we could really have a chance to get her back. Is that possible, Agent Scully?"

"Why don't you fill us in on that night," Mulder suggested.

Scully's relief was tempered by the knowledge that this was not a question that could be avoided for long.

George appeared in the doorway, baseball cap tilted forward and shadowing his face.

A thick scar marred the girl's throat, winding down to her collarbone and disappearing beneath her nightgown. Crushed trachea, severe blood loss, a lack of oxygen to the brain for a prolonged period of time—it was a wonder that she was still alive.

Alive wasn't quite the same as living, though. And for all intents and purposes, the likelihood of their daughter ever awakening was slim to none.

The true extent of the damage beneath the surface scars could only be speculated upon, but Scully knew that the damage within was often far greater than the damage without.

She glanced up at the girl's mother as the woman watched her with unconcealed hope and trepidation.

"It was four years ago now. June thirtieth, ninety-two. Sydney had just turned eleven a few weeks before, early May," Cindy offered. She wrung her hands in her lap as she leaned against the bed.

"I'd taken her into town with me that day to pick up supplies and make a couple stops," George started, sitting atop a large oak chest. "It was dark by the time we finally headed back. She had been messing around out back in the morning, so we were off to a late start. I should've just left her with her mom, but uh, she liked to tag along so I took her with me.

"It was real dark when we were driving home, and these roads, you know, they're tricky no matter how long you've driven them. Must have hit an overturned rock or something, because the next thing I know we're skidding to the side of the road and the back tire's flat. Our truck's pretty old, so it wasn't the first time it had happened. Didn't think nothing of it, just pulled out the jack and swapped the tire out for the spare, no problems." George paused to take his cap off, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

"Syd was fooling with the radio in the truck while I changed it. Reception's shit out here most of the time, but she always tried. All that was coming out was static, and of course she had it on as loud as the damn thing would go, so I didn't even hear her get out. She, uh...she must have been bored or something, waiting for me to finish up, and I'd just stood up when I heard her scream.

"It was so dark I could hardly see a thing, but when she started yelling... I didn't get to her in time," he explained, his voice rough. Without the lawn-mowing-alien cap, the man looked smaller, tired.

"Soon as I rounded the side of the truck I saw this thing coming at me, all snarling and mad like a wild dog, only bigger. Meaner. So fast, it was like a shadow. Sucker bit me real good before I got a swing in." He rolled up his sleeve, revealing a long, thin scar across his forearm. "Hit it with the tire iron until I didn't hear nothing but a sickly yelp. But Syd, she wasn't crying anymore. She was just lying there, so still. So much blood. I thought I'd lost her. My girl's strong though, she pulled through." George nodded to himself.

Despite the fans, the house seemed to be heating up. The room was stifling, her shirt was too heavy. Scully looked back at the girl. It wasn't fair, she knew, but these things never were. She'd seen so many sick kids, so many that just never woke up. Scully unbuttoned her shirt cuffs, trying to relieve the anxiety being up here had provoked.

"Do you think you managed to kill the creature?" Mulder asked.

George shrugged. "Thought I had at the time, but we never could find it again afterward. Had a lot of folks looking, too. There aren't many of us way out here, but we take care of our own."

Mr. and Mrs. Bell seemed nice enough, and certainly the accident that left their daughter in such a condition was tragic. But as much as Scully was loath to admit it, there was truly nothing they could do for the girl.

Even if they were to locate the girl's attacker—human, animal, or otherwise—the most they could do was eliminate the threat and ensure the safety of other travelers in the area. There was no magical antidote to cure permanent brain damage.

She watched as the girl's chest rose and fell with mechanical breath, a low and even rhythm.

...

_Unknown Time  
Unknown Location_

The area had been evacuated and quarantined.

She'd been left behind.

Government agents were probably surrounding the area a couple miles out, blocking the roads, preventing access and escape.

Perhaps the neurotoxin she'd discovered and sent off to the lab in Phoenix had been more dangerous than she anticipated. But she'd only just sent the samples out a couple of hours ago, hadn't she? There was no way they'd even been delivered yet, let alone analyzed thoroughly enough to initiate an emergency quarantine.

She was getting as paranoid as Mulder.

Whatever was going on here, she would not sit idly by and wait it out. Her partner could be in danger. The family here could be with him, trapped somewhere. Or worse, perhaps they had trapped him. No one could be trusted. Not yet, anyway.

Scully circled around the desk, pulling open drawers until she found a ring of master keys and pocketing them before reaching for the telephone. She held the receiver to her ear. Silence. Figures.

Resolutely, she walked out, leaving the door open behind her. Her room was closest. After a few failed attempts, she managed to unlock the door, enter, and lock it behind her—just in case.

Now all she needed was a phone.

And her partner.

Wouldn't she feel foolish for all her worry if he was sound asleep in his bed right now? Pissed as all hell that he'd left her in the middle of freaking nowhere, but otherwise relieved. Her optimism was perfunctory, however. Things were never that easy, especially when Mulder was involved.

She swept the beam of her flashlight across the room. The bed was as tidy as she'd left it, but her bag was missing from the table.

She wandered through, looking in drawers and under the bed, but unable to locate any trace of her things. Even the wastebasket was empty. She'd suspect a case of impressive maid service with a dash of thievery, if the room wasn't coated in a thick sheet of dust. The carpets were gritty with sand beneath her shoes.

Nothing. There was nothing here. Her things had been stolen, enough to make it seem as though she'd never been here at all. Someone was setting them up. Erasing them.

Scully inspected the bathroom to no avail. She had to get out of this place.

God only knew where her partner was, and what trouble he'd gotten himself into. Every moment spent in here was another moment lost, wasted. Hardening her resolve, she tightly gripped her flashlight.

Scully paused before unlocking the connecting door, realizing that she hadn't exactly been careful so far in her panic and confusion. She dropped her hand and reached for her weapon, unholstering it and checking the magazine. Ready, she slowly opened the door, leading with her gun, and made her way into Mulder's motel room.

Nothing jumped out at her. Nothing moved. Not even a breeze passed through the room.

Empty. Just as hers had been.

Scully checked around the bed, in the bathroom, only to come up with the same result.

He wasn't here.

She had looked, of course, but it was more than that.

The room he'd occupied next to hers was stale and empty, no trace of his cologne, no sunflower seeds littering the carpet. Whatever was going on here, whoever was behind this, was disturbingly thorough.

Scully backed out of the room and returned to her own, locking the door behind her. A shiver coiled around her spine.

Scully pulled back the curtain to look outside.

The quaint house attached to the motel office seemed far more foreboding, looming in the darkness. Scully stared at it hesitantly through the window, able only to make out its edges and the reflection of her own flashlight bouncing off the glass of the front door.

…

_Tuesday  
July 30th, 1996_

_The Southern Belle Motel  
Southeast Coconino County, Arizona  
6:47 a.m._

He'd put the keys somewhere.

Mulder searched his pockets, then the drawers of the short dresser at the front of the room, finding only a pack of emergency candles and a bible. He hadn't even opened the drawers since he'd gotten here. This was ridiculous.

His shirtsleeve scratched against his sunburn. He rolled it up, rubbing his skin lightly. It was ridiculously hot here, but the clouds were still rolling in, which he took as a good sign.

Mulder mentally listed and reordered his schedule, wondering how long he'd be partnerless today. Scully, in a moment of weakness, had agreed to take on the autopsy of the latest victim herself. It wasn't that he didn't want to join her, but he really didn't want to join her.

Autopsies, after the novelty had worn out—and it had—were exceedingly dull if you didn't get to participate. Scully always seemed annoyed when he'd start testing the equipment out of boredom. He couldn't do much in the absence of an autopsy report, or at least something to go on. He'd just have to entertain himself.

Mulder left the motel room, accidentally slamming the door behind him, intent on relocating his keys so he could get out of there.

Scully was headed toward the car when he saw her, and his eyes immediately locked on the glint of silver on her hand.

"Where do you think you're going?" Scully asked, gripping the keys in her fist.

Mulder shuffled his feet, trying to come up with something reasonable. "I'm...going to interview someone. The sheriff. I'm going to interview the sheriff." Scully stared him down. "To, ah, get a better feel for the case."

"Well, you'll have to catch a ride in with Mr. Bell unless you want to wait around for me all day. I'm meeting the funeral director at the morgue in twenty minutes. Apparently the previous coroner they'd outsourced has been working a traffic accident in Flagstaff since Saturday, so we won't be comparing notes anytime soon. And don't you think your time would be more productively spent here, Mulder?"

"_Fox_?" a voice beckoned him from across the sandy parking lot. Martha appeared in the office doorway.

Mulder so regretted showing her his badge.

"Don't leave me with her," he whispered.

Scully smirked. "Oh come on, she likes you. It's sweet."

It was not sweet. "But she keeps touching me."

"Touching how?"

"You know, with her hand, rubbing my arm all the time like she's petting me or trying to lull me into a false sense of security so she can slip arsenic into my tea."

"You're not scared of that sweet old lady, are you?" Scully asked.

"No." It wasn't a lie. She looked tough, but he was pretty sure he could take her.

Scully rolled her eyes. "I'll call you when I'm on my way back."

Mulder sighed dramatically, but Scully didn't respond. Just as well, she was probably right. He could take a look around the area, see if anything stood out.

Lying just beneath the surface of this case, a hint of the paranormal tantalized him with the possibility of uncovering it.

Scully, characteristically, had her doubts. He could tell as much by the death-inducing glare he'd received after meeting the slightly unconventional Mr. Bell. Whatever this case held, Mulder was determined to find it, expose it, and worry about the paper work later.

…

_Tuesday  
July 30th, 1996_

_Orville Nowen's Mortuary  
Winslow, Arizona  
7:09 a.m._

The wind picked up, stirring the sand. Scully shielded her eyes as she looked toward the small building. It had the same sandstone walls and red plated roof as most of the buildings around here, but didn't look nearly as rundown as the motel.

The heat seemed to be pressing in on her despite the wind, filling her lungs and coating her skin. This was supposed to be monsoon season, so a bit of rain would be neither unexpected nor unwelcome, but Scully wasn't sure she could wait around to get cooled off.

She had locked the rental and walked across the small paved parking lot when a young man opened the door.

"Darrell Claiborne," the young man introduced himself. "I'm the assistant funeral director. I take it you are Agent Scully?"

Scully shook his hand and nodded. "Nice to meet you. Think we can take this inside?"

"Of course. The wind is getting pretty violent," he added.

She looked at the parking lot across the street for the first time, realizing that she hadn't seen another sedan since they'd gotten off the I-40.

"Wow," Scully said while following Darrell into the parlor, "people here sure like their trucks."

"Not just any trucks." He held the basement door for her, which was situated just behind a table full of fresh flowers and sample urns. Scully glanced at the selection in passing, mildly disturbed by a middle-earth themed urn, complete with elves and a scattering of forest animals. "You'll never see more flatbed Fords in one place as you will here, ever since that Eagles song came out in the seventies. Don't even get me started. The place has hardly changed at all since then. Here," he handed her a scant tray of autopsy instruments at the bottom of the stairs. "We don't have the best facilities for this kind of thing."

"I understand," Scully assured him. They rarely did have the facilities.

The city's hospital would have been preferable, certainly more sanitary. But for whatever reason, this was the address she'd been given. They probably wanted to avoid the publicity. She couldn't blame them, really. Touristy places like this could fall a part in the face of bad press.

Darrell stood off to the side to pull open the refrigerated drawer while she slid into a lab coat and snapped on a pair of gloves. The body was already laid out neatly, external exam completed. For someone so young, he sure had promise in the business of death.

Scully bent to examine a particularly deep laceration in the soft tissue of the victim's upper thigh. Deep, but not deep enough to have damaged the femoral artery.

"So you're investigating this guy, hey? He into some drug cartel or something?" Darrell asked.

Scully sighed inwardly. Darrell was a small-talker. Fantastic.

"No," she answered shortly. Scully pulled at the collar of her lab coat, loosening it. "Don't you have air conditioning down here?"

"Broken. Just as well, it was a piece of crap to begin with. I've been hoping to drag the boss in here, make him sweat it out until he's desperate enough to invest in a new one."

Damn. She was far too hot in his heavy coat, and was beginning to regret her selection of attire. The practical black pants and low heels lent an air of professionalism, but did nothing whatsoever to circumvent the heat.

"So, satanic cult then?" he inquired.

"Probably not, Darrell."

"My grandmother was always talking about stuff like that. Said she could hear the spirits of the dead."

"Is that so?" Scully marked a path across the victim's skull with her finger, left to right, right to left. The victim's brain was certain to hold some answers.

The absence of evidence could be just as telling as its presence. She wasn't used to starting off with the brain, but this case just smacked of rabies or some other wild animal related disease.

She wanted to rule out her first suspects as soon as possible, before this became an intensive and exhausting process with—typically—no conclusive results. She hated that.

Satisfied, she lifted the Stryker saw off the tray and clicked on the tape recorder. "Tuesday, July thirtieth, seven-thirty a.m.," Scully started. "I'll begin the autopsy of Mr. Leon Jacob, age forty, with the cranial exam."

"Yeah. Used to scare the hell out of us as kids." He chuckled in remembrance, standing idly on the other side of the body as she fiddled with the vibrating saw that refused to turn on. "Here, this one isn't as temperamental," he offered, handing her a slightly smaller replacement. She accepted it gratefully.

"Don't get me wrong, she was a sweet lady, just a few cards short of a deck. When I was seven, she told me that they got restless—the spirits, you know. And when they got restless and lonely they'd follow you around until you let your guard down, then slip into your dreams. Once they had you, they'd never let go. I slept with the lights on for weeks after that."

"Chisel," she requested.

"Here. Oh, maybe he was in the mafia. The guy's suit was pretty swanky. Definitely mafia potential there."

Scully ignored the technician and examined the tissue damage thoughtfully. "The cerebrum shows clear signs of encephalopathy, predominantly on the frontal and parietal lobes, as well as extensive petechial hemorrhaging consistent with prolonged heat exposure."

Not a surprise, given the conditions. She passed the organ to Darrell to be weighed and set aside. She'd have to take some tissue samples.

Scully made fast work of the Y incision. The body had already been well on its way to decomposition by the time it was found, and the evidence had degraded accordingly.

Nonetheless, the heart and liver looked to have broken down at a far more accelerated rate than the rest of the body. Carefully, she removed the victim's heart. It wasn't always so easy to tell, but barring any soon to be discovered aneurysms or blows affecting the central nervous system, she was fairly confident that she was holding the victim's cause of death in her hands.

The tissue was yellowed and pale in patches. Serious damage. The liver didn't look much better.

The heat was quickly becoming a prime suspect. She removed the remaining internal organs in silence before examining them. An hour passed. Two. The puzzle was assembling itself slowly, and Scully was treated to a running dialogue ranging from town history to broken hearts.

The day would never end.

Scully couldn't stand working in the overheated basement much longer. She pulled off her gloves, tossing them into a waste basket, and donned a clean pair.

It would take several more hours of analysis to determine the specifics, but she was beginning to get a pretty good understanding of the pathology. No ghosts or creepy crawlies here.

"The liver exhibits signs of coagulation disturbance and renal failure. Hemorrhagic acute lung injury is another possible cause of death. Heart: right ventricular dilation, evidence of acute coronary syndrome. Between level of decomposition, lividity, liver temperature, and the attending investigator's analysis of complicating environmental conditions upon discovery, time of death lands somewhere between five and ten on Sunday evening."

"You can tell all that?"

"I've been doing this for a while," Scully said. "Most likely cause of death thus far is circulatory shock and multi-organ failure resulting from advanced hyperthermia, and complicated by dehydration and minor blood loss. A toxicology exam and analysis of the victim's hippocampal cells to rule out rabies will be required to confirm."

Scully turned to the young technician—funeral director? Whatever the hell his title was—as he leaned against the room's only counter, looking incredibly bored.

"Send this out to the closest lab for me," she said, passing him a tray of blood and tissue samples. "We need the tox screen back as soon as possible. Have them check the chloride, sodium, and urea nitrogen concentrations in the vitreous."

He nodded eagerly, finally, blissfully silent.

She'd forgotten something, and the derailment of her train of thought was beginning to irritate her.

Check the vitreous humor, send a tissue sample of the thyroid, run a tox screen for… "Oh, and don't forget to have them screen for drugs or alcohol in the blood. In fact, tell them to double check everything. If this man was poisoned or contracted an unusual contagion, we need to know about it."

Her vision wavered, leaving the body in front of her even more gruesomely distorted than it already was. Dying slowly in a hot car suddenly seemed so much worse than it had yesterday.

She pulled a glove off and ran the back of her hand across her forehead. Of all the places to have shitty air-conditioning, Scully lamented.

At least the evidence hadn't been jeopardized.

Scully sighed. She needed to sleep tonight, or she wasn't going to be any use to this investigation. She had been too uncomfortable in the hot motel room to do more than twist and turn all last night.

"I can finish up here, Agent Scully," Darrell offered. "Will you be wanting to do anymore tomorrow, or can I pack him up and ship him off?"

She didn't plan on returning if she could help it. But there was always the possibility. "Sew the body up and return it to the cooler. I'll give you a call tomorrow and let you know if you can release it yet. I'm just going to run a few of these under a microscope to see if anything stands out."

Though he wasn't exactly a coroner, or much of an assistant, she did appreciate having some of the more monotonous work taken over. Stitching dozens of evenly spaced Xs into decomposing flesh was positively mind-numbing.

"You look tired," he commented, unnecessarily.

Just these samples, then she'd go. She glanced at the analogue clock on the far wall. Four-thirty. Plenty of time.

"I'll only be a few minutes."

...

_Tuesday  
July 30th, 1996_

_The Southern Belle Motel  
Southeast Coconino County, Arizona  
7:23 p.m._

A knock sounded on his motel room door and it opened a moment later as Scully let herself in.

Mulder looked up at her entrance, shifting on the edge of the bed to face her. The sun had nearly set behind her, leaving the dark clouds with a purplish tinge.

"Mulder, you aren't going to believe these autopsy results," she said, dropping down beside him on the starchy green comforter without looking up from the thin folder she held. She looked exhausted, but pleased. Her hair was pulled into a loose ponytail, several of the shorter strands having already escaped. "I tried to call your cell, why didn't you—" Scully paused as she glanced at him for the first time since entering his motel room. "Mulder, what are you wearing?"

That...was an unanswerable question. Better left a mystery. "I don't want to talk about it. Its been a long day. Tell me about yours?" he deflected.

Scully was barely suppressing a grin, and possibly laughter. He could hardly blame her. Thankfully she allowed him what remained of his dignity and didn't press the issue.

The bed squeaked softly as Scully shifted on it, settling next to him while passing Mulder a file full of autopsy reports for his inspection.

"You were right about the exsanguination, that wasn't what killed them."

"You couldn't determine the cause of death?"

"Oh no, I definitely can. Trouble is, there seem to be multiple causes, and each led to further complications which eventually resulted in death. We have to wait on the toxicology results, but I did manage to find an as-yet unidentified neurotoxin in the victim's spinal fluid. It's organic," Scully pre-empted his conjecture, "but the chemical composition is highly complex. As far as I can tell, it may have come from an external source—coral snakes are pretty common around here, and it seems to be our best bet so far. That, or a variation of black widow venom. Whatever it is, it may have been responsible for short-circuiting our victim's central nervous system and leaving him functionally incapacitated."

"So this venom killed him?"

"No. The levels present were not high enough to be considered lethal, at least not for someone of  
Mr. Jacob's age and health. I would have missed it, actually, had I not been looking for anomalies. But what's important is that Mr. Jacob would have been incapacitated, perhaps even unconscious, as a result. Ultimately, this man died of a cardiac arrest brought on by extended heat exposure that progressed into a state of hyperthermia."

"You're saying that he cooked to death?"

"Well, basically yes. It is somewhat more complicated than that, Mulder. Mr. Jacob was probably trapped in his car for around forty-eight hours before he finally succumbed to the effects of heatstroke. Two days of apparent immobility," Scully clarified, pointing to the color photograph of the dead man's burnt and blistered arm, "judging by the epidermal damage concentrated in this area, which would have had the most direct exposure to sunlight." She patted Mulder's sunburned arm gently. "The only reason I thought of it was because you so stubbornly refused to put on sunscreen yesterday."

"I'm building up my tan," he defended.

"His internal organs showed signs of premortem damage consistent with advanced hyperthermia, and it seems severe dehydration aggravated the problem significantly."

"All this doesn't explain the claw and teeth marks, or the victim's intact clothing," Mulder countered.

"No, it doesn't. Animal Control swears it's the work of a wild dog, rather than any bears or coyotes that may be in the area. It isn't uncommon, especially in this terrain and climate."

"A wild dog with enough taste to respect the sanctity of an Armani suit? I'm telling you Scully, there's something we're missing here." He tossed the folder between them on the bed. The room dimmed.

"If there is, we aren't going to find it with an autopsy. I can find no alternative explanation that would rule out an animal attack, or one that would directly confirm it. There was no hippocampal damage that would suggest rabies, but it's still possible. There weren't even traces of saliva in the wounds. The car was able to protect the body from predation, but with the contained heat, decomposition progressed quickly. I can only estimate his time of death. It's a place to start, at least," Scully allowed.

Mulder nodded. "I can think of another, if you're up for it."

...


	3. But I Have Promises to Keep

...

_Tuesday  
July 30th, 1996_

_Unnamed Road  
Southeast Coconino County, Arizona  
8:10 p.m._

The gathering clouds had finally come through with their promise of rain, in the form of a torrential deluge. For somewhere with such little precipitation, the storm seemed violent and out of place.

Mulder had switched the windshield wipers on as the storm progressed, only to find that they'd been sucked dry by the Arizona sun and now did little more than leave streaks across the glass.

Scully could hardly see out the window. Just as well, there was nothing to see. The full moon occasionally glimpsed out from behind the clouds, but never enough to lighten their path.

She wasn't entirely sure what Mulder was hoping to find out here, but he insisted on staking out the crossroad north of the motel.

It was hardly a crossroad, either. He was reaching this time. One moderately-used dirt road with a barely visible trail of slightly packed sand running through it did not, in Scully's opinion, count as a legitimate crossroad.

They sat for a while at the side of the road, watching the unmoving landscape get pelted with rain, until Mulder decided it would be more productive to drive up and down the roads looking for...looking for something. Right, hellhounds. So far, no luck.

Scully slumped in the passenger seat.

The dark road disappeared beneath their car as she stared intently ahead.

The headlights illuminated their path, but the road itself was so empty and desolate that there was really no need for them.

To veer off to either side would only result in the briefest of changes to this hypnotic scenery. The addition of coarser sand, a slightly looser traction.

There weren't any rumblestrips out here. She wasn't even sure she would notice if they went off course. Perhaps they already had, and this was simply the hundredth mile deeper into nowhere.

The radio had lost its signal hours back, but it remained on, the volume low. Mulder had wanted to recreate the scene George Bell had painted, down to the smallest of details. His enthusiasm wasn't enough to make him borrow their truck, though. He seemed unusually shy of the vehicle.

Static carried over the waves, a writhing and monotonous background noise that drifted through the car.

Occasionally it caught snippets of conversation: …fell from a train late Monday…limited time only…lost somewhere in the woods, no sign…don't wait…

If she listened attentively enough, the noise pulled itself together into words, a harmony of hushed voices and strained whispers lying far beneath the static.

She let her mind wander idly, contemplating the road, the whispering static.

Her thoughts strayed further, until the car became no more than a muted hum beneath her, and her eyes drifted slowly shut.

The whispers pulled her in, drawing her closer, wrapping themselves around her in a chorus of half-muttered words, empty phrases, long forgotten voices.

She wondered, in her semi-lucid state, if these could be the voices of the dead reaching out to touch the living, or the result of a sensation-addicted mind desperate to derive meaning from even the most meaningless of stimuli.

Absently Scully concluded the latter to be most logical, and she drifted easily into the dark, beckoning waters lapping at the edge of her consciousness.

...

_Tuesday  
July 30th, 1996_

_Unnamed Road  
Southeast Coconino County, Arizona  
10:24 p.m._

Three black coffees in substitute for an actual meal had kept Mulder fairly wired since they'd started the drive.

The downside, of course, was the incredible pressure on his bladder and the inevitable crash that was creeping up on him. A body could only go so long without sleep. Most bodies, at least. He was sure he had a couple X-Files tucked away disputing that assumption.

The drive was not as interesting as expected. There had been a suspiciously shaped cactus a while back, but no black dogs or mysterious lights in the sky. They hadn't so much as seen a deer all night, and the rain was verging on a flood. The road was starting to slide out from under them.

There was a full moon tonight, but it only made its presence know with intermittent appearances when the clouds broke. The windshield wipers swayed back and forth, water sloshing along the glass in thick torrents. For the desert, it was awfully wet.

The radio emitted a high-pitched shriek and Mulder cringed, glancing down at it. He spun the dial a couple of times to no avail, finally giving up and turning it off.

Scully was slumped against the passenger side door, undisturbed by the noise. It was for the best. She was looking like she was going to start falling asleep standing up, scalpel in hand. That was never safe.

They were already headed in the direction of the motel, and this time Mulder opted not to turn back around for another trip. The road was getting dangerous, and he was sure Scully had worked enough for the day. It was getting late, and they were getting nowhere.

The motel came into view, a darkened obstruction barely visible if not for the low lighting emitted from some of the windows. He pulled up close to their doors to make the run through the rain minimal.

"Even those rock-hard beds would be more comfortable than the car door, don't you think?" Mulder asked, looking over at his sleeping partner. Her shoulders rose and fell lightly with each breath, even but quick. A dream, perhaps. "Scully?"

Still no response.

Mulder sighed. He didn't want to wake her from what may well have been the first actual rest she'd gotten on the trip so far, but obviously she'd kill him if he left her in the car.

He put the car in park, leaving the engine to rumble softy as he reached over and rested his hand on Scully's shoulder.

"Hey," he whispered, leaning close enough to catch a whiff of the fleeting scent of lemons that wove through her hair, "come on, let's get inside." He shook her slightly. "Scully?"

A harder shake, jarring.

The hand Scully had propped against the door fell to her lap, and her head lolled forward.

Fear slammed into Mulder's chest, reaching up into his lungs and catching his breath. His hand had frozen in place on her shoulder as his mind spun through scenarios and explanations—…contagions, illness, sabotage…—rating and disregarding them before they even reached the level of conscious thought.

Tentatively he reached out, laying his fingers against her neck. A quick heartbeat rested there, thrumming against his fingertips. The relief was sweet but fleeting. She was alive, but something was wrong.

He repeated her name again, his voice battling against the beat of rain hammering the roof of the car. Mulder's hand trailed up to her jaw, lifting her head gently. Her skin was hot to the touch. Carefully, he leaned her back against the seat.

He had to get her out.

Get her to a hospital. Medical attention, something, anything.

Mulder unfastened his belt and threw open the door of the Précis, allowing the storm brief entrance. The wind lashed at him, brushing his hair back and forcing him to squint against the rain as he struggled around to the passenger side.

He opened her door, stabilizing her with his hands and unclasping her seatbelt. She made no noise, no small movement, but some small part of him was convinced her eyes would flutter open any moment and she'd laugh and tease and be absolutely fine.

"Help!" Mulder shouted into the storm, his voice drowned out and muted by the rain. "I need some help!"

He lifted her right arm and wrapped it around his neck in order to hoist her out of the car. When she was much lighter than anticipated he leaned her against his chest and lifted her out. She hung limply in his arms.

The headlights cut brightly through the haze, illuminating the panel of doors only five feet away and revealing a clumsy attempt at parking with reduced visibility.

Her chest rose and fell against his, the thrumming beat of her heart keeping synchronized time, and he wondered fleetingly if he'd ever noticed before that their hearts matched beats.

She was fine. Obviously. Breathing, heart beating. Fine.

She was just tired, that's all. Tired, and she needed to lie down, someplace cool and sheltered, and maybe he could just keep an eye on her through the night.

He fumbled with the door for only a moment, stepping into his dry motel room while shutting out the storm and steady rumble of the car whose doors were both open wide and headlights still glistened through falling raindrops.

…

_Unknown Time  
Unknown Location_

The longer Scully stared, the more certain she was that there was something moving around inside.

She had no idea how long she'd been looking for Mulder, let alone how long she'd been asleep before that. Worse, she couldn't be sure how much longer she would be stuck here. With no transportation, no way of contacting anyone, and miles and miles of sand in every direction, she could be here for days. Longer.

She looked down at the flashlight in her hand, trying to calculate how long it had been since she last needed new batteries. She couldn't remember, but resolved to conserve her resources as much as possible. Soon she'd need water, food. It felt good to set priorities, to keep her thoughts ordered and linear.

Scully cleared off a space on the dresser and set the flashlight on end, brightening her motel room slightly. Just enough for her to fish the emergency candles from the top drawer and recover the matches that rested in the still-empty ashtray.

She paused, realizing that she really had nowhere to put the candles. The decorative hurricane candle, with an antiquated dried flower motif, was suddenly far more appealing than it had been last night. The others could be saved for later use.

This would have to do for now. At least until the sun came up, and the solid black wall of the horizon suggested that would not be any time soon. She set the shell aside to expose the smaller votive candle within and carefully struck a match.

The tiny flame ate at the wick, emitting a weak glow. She had to think, figure this out. Scully slid down to the floor, sitting with her back against the door.

People didn't just disappear—well, okay, sometimes they did. She knew Mulder's theorizing would be firmly focused on the possibility of extra-terrestrial abduction right now, but she just couldn't bring herself to embrace that conclusion. There had to be a logical explanation, something she hadn't thought of, something so obv—

The door behind her quaked, jarring her forward as something crashed into it.

Another shuddering strike quickly followed, and her body snapped to attention as adrenaline spiked in her veins.

The sound was thunderous in the small room and the walls seemed to tremble from the impact.

She clambered to stand, backing up and bumping hard into the dresser beside her, knocking over a lamp in her haste and initiating a chain reaction that saw all the hideous little trinkets come tumbling down.

Even as the candle extinguished with the momentum of its descent, the olive-green cotton drapes lit up as though they'd been doused in gasoline with merely a brush of the flame.

…

_Tuesday  
July 30th, 1996_

_The Southern Belle Motel  
Southeast Coconino County, Arizona  
10:55 p.m._

"She's burning up. George, you'd better call an ambulance, she probably has heatstroke. Here," Cindy said, fingers deftly unbuttoning Scully's shirt, "get these off of her, I'll get some cold water."

Mulder nodded, slowly shaking off a numb state of shock, and knelt on his motel room bed to pull at the sleeves of Scully's dress shirt. Her skin simmered beneath his knuckles as he pulled the shirt from her shoulders, easing it down.

She's fevered. And she won't wake up.

Wake up, wake up, wake up, he chanted. If she would just open her eyes, move a muscle, make a sound—anything, then he'd know that she would be okay.

And she would be. She was going to be fine, he reassured himself. Scully was just overheated, tired. Maybe she just needed to sleep.

Cindy was suddenly across from him on the bed, laying a cool wet towel over Scully's torso, which seemed wrong somehow.

She would be completely mortified to have these strangers removing her clothing without her permission. He should dress her. Cover her up. Mulder could only seem to sit rigidly in place, as still as his partner was, while he watched her.

He didn't know what to do.

George stumbled back in, letting the still raging storm breeze through the room. It was chilly, how could she possibly still be so hot?

"Well?" Cindy demanded, fussing over the towels.

"Nothing," George reported. "Phones are down. Wind must have knocked a power line out."

It suddenly occurred to Mulder that although his cell phone had been completely screwed up in the same automotive fiasco that had claimed his only shirt earlier in the day, Scully's shouldn't be. She'd had it in her bag.

Mulder rushed out into the rain to find the car's doors had been closed, but left unlocked. The keys rested on the front seat. He pulled open the passenger side door, rooting around the dark, damp seats for the bag that he knew—There! He grabbed it and dashed back inside, already pulling items out.

Her cell phone was tucked neatly away, just like everything else. He pulled it out, opened it, held his breath. Cindy came up to him, gently taking the cell phone from his hands.

"I'll take care of this," she said. "You just keep an eye on her. We need to bring her temperature down as fast as possible. But nothing too cold. It'll just trap the heat in her."

Mulder nodded, not entirely sure if Cindy knew what she was doing, but he sure as hell didn't.

He dipped a cloth in cool water to lay across her forehead. George left for more towels as Cindy dialed. Mulder listened hopefully until she finally spoke to someone on the other end.

"Danny? We need you to get here quick—no, Sydney's fine. It's one of our guests, it's an emergency." Cindy paused. "Yes, now. That kind of emergency. No one else is going to be able to get out here in this storm, the roads will be all washed up. Just, please—Okay, thank you."

She turned back to Mulder, her eyes almost apologetic. "Sydney's primary physician lives close by. He can get your partner help."

…

_Unknown Time  
Unknown Location_

The fire sucked in an eager breath before she could even remember to take one, and the room was abruptly void of the shadows it previously held.

Flames licked at the ceiling, and she watched.

They spread fervently, laying claim to the matching cotton sheets and disturbingly flammable pillows as her eyes tracked them and her body refused to move.

Another hard slam of flesh and bone against the wooden door finally shook her from her daze.

There was a pause, and then it slammed into the door again.

A violent growl and snarl mixed with a growing sizzle in the air as the wallpaper peeled and curled, until she could hear nothing but the messy amalgamation of it all.

Her fingertips brushed against the nine-millimeter in its holster, but abruptly pulled away in favor of the light wooden chair tucked against the small round table. Smoke was beginning to build, tickling the back of her throat and stinging her eyes.

She felt for the arms of the chair, lifted, and swung it as hard as she could into the glass window. The shatter rose above all other noise and Scully stumbled back as the fire surged toward the newly available oxygen as though it had been sucked out of the room.

She shielded her face from the heat, falling back into the wall.

It was everywhere.

The whole place would light up and burn to the ground, and she'd be the only one to give a damn because she was the only one that seemed to be here.

There had to be a way out.

She coughed, covering her mouth with her hand as the smoke began to infiltrate her lungs. The broken window was surrounded by flames, and in the small room, she was about to be as well. The only way out was the only way in.

She gripped the door handle, unlocked the deadbolt, and stood to the side as it swung open.

Scully could see only shadows cast by the growing fire, but nothing came barreling through the door as she had hoped. Maybe then she could have locked it in and ran.

The heat was so relentless that it dried the sweat on her skin, sucked the moisture right out of her lungs and suffocated her like a hand wrapping around her throat. She couldn't wait, couldn't risk passing out from carbon monoxide inhalation, or giving the fire a chance to block her only exit.

She sidestepped outside, her back pressed against the rough siding as cool night air washed over her skin.

A low growl made her stomach drop.

The impact caught her off guard.

Her balance faltered and she stumbled, hitting the dirt and trying desperately to fend off the dog-like creature whose solid muscle had pushed her down. Flames jumped through the window above her and broken glass scraped against her back through the thin fabric of her shirt.

Sharp teeth ripped into her left arm as she tried to shield herself, wrenching a coarse scream from her lips. She groped for the wooden chair, her hand skittering through the dirt and glass until her fingers finally gripped something solid.

She twisted, and swung.

A high-pitched yelp cut through the night air. Without the beast's weight pinning her down, she scrambled backwards, adrenaline pumping wildly through her veins, and pulled herself up.

She held the shard of broken wood, ready to swing again, but she could see nothing in the inky blackness in front of her.

...

_Wednesday  
July 31st, 1996_

_The Southern Belle Motel  
Southeast Coconino County, Arizona  
1:05 a.m._

"How do you know what's wrong with her?" Mulder asked.

Cindy sat down next to him, watching Scully the whole time. "When Sydney was first in the hospital, before we knew how bad it was, she came down with a fever on top of everything else. Doctor's said she had hyperthermia—you know, heatstroke. With our summer heat, it's always a concern. Only, they didn't know what was causing it. Took days to finally get her stabilized." She looked down at her hands.

"Here, I've got a couple fresh towels," George offered, coming in through the door to Scully's room. "I'll bring in a fan from the house."

Mulder stayed by Scully's side. Her skin was inflamed, as though she were burning up from the inside. How could he not have noticed she was sick? She'd seemed so tired today, but he never thought…

A knock came on the motel room door. Cindy rose to answer it and let a tall, serious looking man in.

"I'm Doctor Grey," he introduced himself. "I hear your wife is in quite a bit of trouble."

"She's my partner. FBI. Just, please, can you help her?" Mulder asked.

Thunder drowned out their voices as the lights flickered for an instant above them.

"I'll do my best," he said, pulling a variety of medical tools from a leather satchel.

Mulder didn't like him. Something about his demeanor, his calm and even voice, was suspicious. He couldn't quite pinpoint the cause of his instinctual mistrust. He didn't like the man coming near her, touching her and running his diagnostics.

George returned with a fan and set it on high, sending a breeze through the room that pushed a small stack of papers on the dresser to the ground. They sat in silence for what seemed like forever.

He took her temperature, and Mulder watched him closely, looking for signs of deceit but finding none.

The man removed the thermometer, frowning at the reading as though he'd expected them to lie about it. "One hundred and five degrees. Patient has a heart rate of 174 BPM, blood pressure of 130 over 72. I'd say you were right, Cindy. Clearly a bad case of heatstroke. It's a good thing you called me promptly. Let's get her cooled off and see what we can do until the storm subsides."

"How can you be sure this is just heatstroke?" Mulder questioned, moving a chair beside the bed so as to be out of the doctor's way—but not too far away.

"It's not my first day. I've seen many cases of heatstroke Agent Mulder, even among people as young and otherwise healthy as your partner. The longer she remains unconscious, the less likely she is to recover. Cindy said you were able to cool her down and prevent her temperature from rising anymore than it already has, but the fact remains that she is entirely unresponsive to external stimuli and our efforts so far have led to little success. We need to get her proper medical attention as soon as possible. I have a colleague at Mercy I can contact, I'll see if we can't get an ambulance to brave the storm."

"It'll be faster to take her myself," Mulder countered.

Doctor Grey shook his head. "I was barely able to make it here. Get your engine flooded and you won't be any help to her at all. These guys know what they're doing and for the moment your partner appears stable." Mulder's skeptical look was apparently not lost on him. "I promise you, Agent Mulder, this is the best course of action available right now. I'll go make the call."

Mulder leaned forward in the chair, resting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

Watching.

Waiting for any sign of her.

If he concentrated he was almost certain he could see her shivering. But his mind did like to play tricks.

Cindy and George had left the room, probably going back home since there was little they could do now. He looked over Scully's still form, noting the steady rise and fall of her chest. She was in there, somewhere.

Maybe Scully was right, and this was some sort of neurotoxin, a medical mystery, because god knows they'd stumbled across enough of those.

Mulder knew he should let the doctor help her and take her to the hospital, but they would poke and prod her and keep him away when he was certain that somehow he could fix this.

He caught snippets of the doctor's words through the door:...may be too severe...cardiopulmonary bypass...arrange for lumbar puncture with the blood tests...possible organ damage...no way of telling...

In just the time he'd been watching her, Scully's skin had lost its red fevered hue and paled considerably, leaving her complexion pallid and grey.

She hadn't so much as stirred in hours. He didn't need Scully's medical knowledge to know that this was serious.

But heatstroke just seemed so mundane, so anticlimactic to threaten his partner's life. Perhaps the doctor was right that it was a matter of circumstance and chance.

Mulder stood, suddenly irritated at the doctor's analysis, at the storm beyond the covered windows, at himself for dragging her out on this damn case.

He paced the small room, feet scuffing across the sickly green carpet.

Mulder's gaze ran across her pale skin on every second turn, unwilling to look away for more than a moment and risk not noticing some minute change in her condition.

She could stop breathing, go into respiratory arrest, her heart could cease its rhythmic beat, and would he notice?

Yes, he reassured himself, he'd know if she were dead.

He'd always know.

But could he save her? He cursed under his breath because he knew the answer, and no matter how fervently his brain chose to deny it, Scully's ever-rational voice whispered in his mind statistics and probabilities and all those unyielding eventualities.

No.

Someday they'd be lost to each other, beyond the reach of science or faith. But they'd damn well put up a fight.

He stopped suddenly, leaving the room to its silence in the absence of his scuffing feet and panicked internal monologue.

Stunned into immobility, he watched as a sharp line of red appeared on her left arm, trailing from the soft skin of her exposed inner elbow down her forearm and disappearing beneath her.

Blood spread to stain the sheets under her as the thin line widened and the skin split.

She didn't make a sound, no outward sign of distress, but the blood on the sheets said it all. Whatever was happening to her was killing her. It was only a matter of time.

Mulder wasn't ready to lose her yet.

He moved quickly, dropping to his knees at the side of the bed and reaching for her arm.

It was real. The blood on his fingers was real. He wasn't just imagining it.

Mulder opened his mouth to call the doctor back in, but stopped.

His partner was lying unconscious and hurt and he knew, he knew exactly what he should be doing, what she would want him to do. Yet he couldn't seem to call out for the austere man that he didn't trust. He wouldn't be willing to let some EMTs cart her off, either.

None of them could be trusted.

Hell, they could be the ones responsible for all of this in the first place. Awful convenient that all of these suspicious deaths kept occurring only a mile from this motel. What bad luck. He'd harbored no ill feelings toward the people here, he'd never felt they were any danger.

But maybe that was the point.

He could still hear the muffled sound of the doctor's voice through the thin walls.

They couldn't fix this.

Scully would tell him he was being ridiculous if she could. She'd set him straight and patiently explain the necessity of medical attention during critical periods of illness and unconsciousness. She would know what to do.

He considered this for a moment, his own breathing unconsciously aligning with the quick rhythm of his partner's as he focused on her.

Even if she were to tell him his theories were bullshit, as was often the case, he'd still pursue them like he always did, because at the end of the day reality couldn't be trusted, but his instincts rarely failed him.

Maybe he knew what to do after all.

…


	4. And Miles to Go Before I Sleep

**A/N:** **I hope everyone enjoys this final installment. Thanks for reading and reviewing!**

…

_Wednesday  
July 31st, 1996_

_Unnamed Road  
Southeast Coconino County, Arizona  
1:30 a.m._

He shifted in the backseat, trying to find a position that didn't leave him contorted. No such luck. He leaned forward for a moment to check that Scully was still securely strapped into the passenger seat.

Mulder sighed and clenched his eyes shut, wondering what the hell he was doing out here and if it would even matter.

Perhaps if he didn't think about sleep, he'd be able to fall into it. But what if that distracted him from the task at hand and only kept him awake longer?

The quiet had become disconcerting, making Mulder's attempts at falling asleep even more difficult. It was beginning to look like a hopeless cause.

His mind could not cease indulging its whirling tangents.

He'd have to find another way.

An alcoholic stupor was looking good right about now, at least compared with the alternative of bashing his head into the car door until he passed out.

It wasn't until he slowly opened his eyes that he realized there was darkness and silence where it shouldn't be. The gritty flow of static over the radio waves had ceased, and the illumination of the dashboard and headlights had gone with it.

Confused, he jerked upright.

No rain.

No partner.

Mulder climbed over the front seat, catching his shirt on the gear shift in his haste. The doors were still locked. For a terrified moment he wondered if somehow he had just made things worse.

Scully should still be here. He unlocked the passenger side door and climbed out, realizing for the first time that not only had the storm passed, but all evidence of it had disappeared with his partner.

The road was dusty and dry beneath his shoes. Even the air seemed parched.

This was it. He must have fallen asleep. Had to be.

Mulder started walking back the way he'd come, fairly certain that the car was at least in the same place he'd parked it and that he was moving in the right direction. There had been a full moon tonight. Granted, that moon had been heavily obscured by the storm, but now the sky was perfectly clear.

There was no moon in sight. Even during the storm, the desert had been overwhelmingly hot and stifling. The temperature seemed to have dropped considerably. Not cold, certainly, but only hinting at its previous warmth.

He started down the dirt road, walking in the centre. No cars came, but he didn't expect them to. The second body recovered had been found curled up in the sleeper of his semi, looking for all the world like he'd just pulled over for a rest. Then never woke up.

For whatever reason, the phenomena was focused here, the intersection of two sandy roads in the middle of nowhere. The timing had been bothering him, however. There seemed to be no discernible pattern, no common temporal bond that tied the victims together. Hundreds of vehicles must have driven through here over four years. Why weren't they all targeted?

Mulder continued forward until he could no longer see the car behind him.

The man Scully had autopsied the night before had rested against the steering wheel of his car, about thirty feet off the road. Who knew how many drivers had passed by while he had lain in his car slowly dying until the sheriff eventually found him.

The road was hypnotic. Empty, quiet, completely unremarkable. If the man had fallen asleep at the wheel, and just happened to have done so in that particular area, maybe that was why he'd been so unlucky. The first victim, a woman that had been found in a similar state, her foot still on the gas pedal and her tank empty, could have done the same.

Maybe they didn't even fall asleep. Perhaps their eyes just drifted shut for a moment, a brief lapse in conscious awareness, and that was all it took. It could have been purely chance that any of them had ended up here.

That left the question of just where the hell here was. Same location, a dream, some sort of strange hole in the laws of physics? What if he was still lying in that car in the rain, slowly slipping into a feverish coma while his extremely ill partner gradually drifted away in the front seat?

Mulder desperately hoped this wasn't a mistake.

He couldn't think about that now. He had to find her.

The looming structure of the motel came into view twenty minutes in. Mulder was certain she would be here somewhere. She had to be. They just needed to wake up. Mulder called out Scully's name, moving faster now.

He heard the sand shift behind him and stopped dead.

A deep, threatening snarl followed.

The creature encroached. Mulder was torn between making a break for it and remaining perfectly still so as not to provoke it further.

A shrill howl made the decision for him, and Mulder drew his weapon and spun around in one move, firing off a shot in the direction of the noise, then another. The barking only increased until he was almost certain there were two—maybe more—and his flight response kicked in full force.

…

_Unknown Time  
Unknown Location_

Scully broke into a sprint.

The muffled sound of paws ripping through the sand behind her urged her forward. She reached the office, pulled the door open, and slammed it shut. Her heart was pounding as she leaned back against the door. She turned to lock it and it suddenly occurred to her that she'd left the door open the last time she'd been in here.

Scully wasn't sure what to make of that, but for now there was no vicious animal tearing at the door to get in, no sound to indicate that it was still out there. Her relief was cautious. She locked the door and stepped away from it.

The room was pitch black.

She'd dropped the flashlight, she realized. Shit. And the candles—which, incidentally, had not been one of her best ideas. Her hand landed on the weapon still at her hip. At least she hadn't misplaced her gun.

Scully moved behind the counter and dropped into the chair there. This was insane. Ridiculous. What the hell was going on? Oh god, Mulder was probably somewhere right now getting mauled and bleeding out and where was she? In no position to help him, that was for sure.

Something was bothering her about this case that she couldn't quite put her finger on. It was more than the usual lack of explanations, the absence of a tangible logic that she could wrap her fingers around.

Here, in this place, in these victims, there was a disturbing stillness. The only thing that seemed to move around here was the wind.

The people, they stayed the same. Sydney Bell looked like she had been frozen in time for the last four years. Her parents, the motel. None of it ever changed.

The unexplained deaths still weighed on her. No matter how many clear threads she could unravel to make sense of each death, the fact of stillness remained. How could one be still through death? What could possibly prevent a person from escaping a boiling hot car when they were otherwise in good health? Why would they wait to die?

She propped her elbows up on the desk and dropped her head into her hands. A jolt of pain shot through her arm. Scully flinched, looking down at it. Now that she'd calmed enough to remember it, the injury hurt like hell. She didn't feel lightheaded, though, and doubted she'd managed to nick any major veins.

Scully could barely see it without any light, but blood trailed down her forearm like a small river, pooling on the wooden desk.

She thought about rabies. Infections. Communicable diseases. Sepsis.

No, she calmed herself. None of that mattered right now. The wound couldn't be that bad. She ran her other hand lightly over it, feeling the grit of sand and slick blood. It looked like black oil in the darkness.

Standing, she unbuttoned her blouse, stripping down to the camisole underneath and easing it off. There wasn't much that could be done right now, not without proper supplies, but she could at least stem the bleeding. Scully wrapped the material around her arm, just tight enough to add some pressure. It would have to do for—

"Scully?"

Her head snapped toward the door.

Had she imagined it? She stood perfectly still, listening. It was Mulder's voice, she knew it was.

He sounded distressed.

Nothing followed.

He was out there. She had to get to him.

She lifted her gun and went toward the door. "Mulder?" she called.

No reply. Scully hesitated, but she knew what she heard.

She eased the door open slowly, waiting for any sign of approaching animals. No movement. The voice had come from the direction of the strip of motel rooms. What if she'd trapped him inadvertently in the burning building?

Scully panicked and ran back toward it only to encounter a closed door. She knew she left that open. No smoke rose from the building, not even the scent of it lingered in the air. It was impossible.

She moved closer to the unbroken window in bewilderment, carefully touching the glass. Cold. Solid. What the hell was going on here? What was this?

She hastily unwrapped the cloth from her arm, wrapping it instead around her hand and trying the door handle. Locked, but not hot. She touched it with her bare fingers, and her skin was not singed like it should have been.

He could still be in there. She briefly holstered her gun and pulled the keys from her pants pocket, re-selecting hers by touch and sliding it in. The lock turned. She switched the keys out for her gun again and pushed the door open, moving cautiously inside.

...

_Unknown Time  
Unknown Location_

He ran toward the building closest to him, the single row of rooms that he and Scully had been occupying, firing off rounds behind him to keep them back. He rattled the first door, the second, banging on it in frustration. The next three were no better and his gun was clicking uselessly.

It was suddenly right in front of him, so black that it blended into the darkness and he could hardly see its lithe form as it lunged. He stumbled back into the wall just as it latched on to the leg of his pants, tearing at the skin of his ankle. The wall suddenly disappeared and he fell into it, hitting the ground heavily.

Another bullet cut through the air and the thing let go of his leg for an instant. He scrambled backward and realized as it slammed shut in front of him that the wall had been a door.

He gasped for breath, partly shocked and partly confused at how quickly his plan had gone to hell, when his mind finally caught up and registered her presence.

A light clicked on and he could see his partner's face.

Mulder stood unsteadily and Scully immediately put a hand on his shoulder, looking him over for injuries and saying something too quickly for him to translate.

"Mulder," she demanded. He blinked. "Are you hurt?"

This must have been a question she'd already asked, judging by her tone of voice. Exasperated, he thought, and smiled at the familiarity.

She's here. She's alive. He found her. And she'd saved his ass in the process.

Mulder embraced her without preamble and Scully teetered a bit, unprepared. She wrapped an arm around him after a moment and returned the hug.

She was solid and real against him. He had missed her even more than he'd realized.

She pulled back, holstering her gun and asking, "Where the hell were you, Mulder?"

There was a note of urgency to her voice, a slightly tainted tone that he didn't quite recognize.

The flashlight she held was pointed at the ground, illuminating just enough for him to see the tiny splatters of blood that dripped to the carpet below.

He grabbed her arm carefully, holding her still even as she self-consciously tried to pull away.

The light revealed still-bloody marks that trailed angrily from elbow to wrist, cutting diagonally where she had twisted away.

Here, the wounds were redder, deeper.

Here she was real, and that was the most surreal thing of all.

"Mulder, it's not that bad," Scully said, gently pushing his hand away. He had been staring, he realized.

His pants were torn along the hem of one leg, already stained, and he wondered just how much was transferable between here and there; how much could be endured in one reality and survived in the next. Perhaps he'd have a limp when they got back. If they got back.

"Hey," she whispered to get his attention. Obediently he looked up at her. "What's going on? Where were you? I looked everywhere."

"Not quite," he replied, unsure of how to answer. "Scully, I...I think we're asleep."

She stared at him blankly.

"Look, I know how it sounds, but you were. We were driving and you fell asleep."

"I remember. I woke up in the car and you were gone."

"That's just it, Scully. You didn't wake up."

Scully continued to stare at him, as though he'd just told her the moon was made of cheese and she could not even begin to comprehend how someone could believe something so ridiculous.

"So we're asleep," she said slowly.

"Yes."

"As in dreaming."

"Yes. I mean, possibly. I haven't quite figured that part out yet."

"Well are you in my dream, or am I in yours? And how do I know you're you and not some dream state-Mulder, or the end result of some hallucinogenic neurotoxin that's affecting my perception?"

She leveled the beam of the xenon flashlight at him suspiciously.

Mulder's hand landed blindly on her wrist, pushing it down in attempt to salvage what remained of his retinas.

"I don't know," Mulder admitted. He slid down the wall into a languid sitting position to take the pressure off of his now tender ankle. "But wherever we are, whatever this is," Mulder waved his hand through the darkness in front of them, "it isn't real. Scully, it can't be."

Scully joined him on the floor, flicking off the flashlight. Shadows slid across her features.

"Feels real enough to me." She patted the floor then wiped the sand from her fingers. "And getting attacked by Cujo out there was certainly not in my imagination." Scully turned to him abruptly. "Why a dream? By your logic, couldn't this just as easily be an alternate reality that we've stumbled into? Or been sucked into some tiny desert version of the Bermuda triangle?"

Damn, she was so sexy sometimes.

"Could be," Mulder replied. "But I think the Bell's daughter has something to do with it. If you're here, and I'm here, wouldn't it follow that she might still be here, too?"

They sat in silence for a while, which he thought was ridiculous. Of all the times for exhaustion to suddenly over take his body, after years of sleep eluding him, now was far from opportune.

The drywall at his back was marginally cooler than his skin, and the contrast was enough to make his eyes slide shut for just a moment.

Mulder breathed evenly, listening to Scully do the same, and wondered how the hell this couldn't be real when he could see it and hear it and touch it.

Scully was right though, the cut on her arm was real enough. Maybe this was something else. Something larger than a nightmare.

It had briefly occurred to him earlier that rushing into this without a plan was a profoundly stupid idea, but now that he had time to let it sink in, he was beginning to realize just how screwed they were.

"I burned it down," she said.

"Burned what down?"

"This. This room. All of it."

Mulder shrugged, looking over at her. "Looks okay to me."

"Exactly. Nothing ever changes. Maybe you're right. This can't be real."

"I'm right?" Mulder scoffed.

"Don't let it go to your head. Did you come with a plan?"

"Nope," he answered. That would have required far too much forethought and too little impulsively.

"I thought I saw something in that house. Do you think it was her?" she asked, drawing her knees up.

"Only one way to find out," he said. Mulder tossed his spent gun on the floor loudly and reached for the pistol in his ankle holster.

"Those don't seem to do much," she commented. "It does seem strange, though, that the girl would be involved in this. George's recollection of the events didn't exactly line up with what we know of the other attacks."

Mulder considered this, dropping his hand to the floor and setting the pistol beside him. The room was stale and musky. "No, it didn't," he agreed. "She wasn't asleep during the attack, at least that we know of."

"I don't mean that, I mean the animal that mauled her was an actual animal. George saw it, he hit it, he was bit by it. It was a physical thing, something real, not a dream. Why would she be here if he wasn't?"

"Maybe we're looking at this the wrong way," Mulder suggested.

"How do you propose looking at it, then?" Scully shifted to face him, tucking a leg under her. He could still see the shine of blood coating her arm. "Say, for the sake of argument, that this has nothing whatsoever to do with some mystical crossroad-voodoo-dog ritual. We're left with the evidence at hand: An incapacitating neurotoxin and a slow death in a locked car. Despite the mutilation the victims sustained, their deaths were, technically, a natural result of their physical circumstances. Avoidable, but not supernatural. Whatever is causing this bizarre shared hallucination—or whatever you want to call it—wasn't responsible for the death of those people, Mulder."

"So you're saying the kid is an anomaly. Maybe she's responsible for this?"

Wind slipped through the thin crack beneath the door, whistling.

"I don't know about responsible. She's not exactly in a position to be."

"Maybe not physically," Mulder agreed. "But if this is some sort of dream state, if this is her dream state, maybe the same rules don't apply."

"She's only fifteen, Mulder. How could she even be controlling something like this?" she asked.

"Well," Mulder started, "it's not unheard of for people her age to possess psychic abilities. Maybe this is some sort of psychic trap, a perpetual recreation of the trauma she experienced four years ago. Maybe she's just as stuck here as we are."

Scully was silent for a while. "What about the toxin?"

"I thought you couldn't identify it?"

"I can't. Not yet, at least, and certainly not from here—wherever here is," she mumbled.

"Do you think we can make it to the house?" he asked.

Scully stood, offering him a hand up in response as a thin cloud of dust rose with her. "Only one way to find out."

...

_Unknown Time  
Unknown Location_

The door had been unlocked. It was almost too inviting.

Nothing had attacked them on the sprint over here, but her muscles were tense with anxiety. They walked silently toward the back of the house and Mulder branched off to clear the living room.

It wasn't much of a plan, but it was something. Mulder hadn't come here with a scheme of his own, of course. He was the only person she knew who'd jump in head-first on a whim to come to her aid. It was as endearing as it was frustrating, but she wouldn't want it any other way.

Scully led with her flashlight to the ground, waiting for any sign of movement in her peripheral vision. The soft shuffle of their shoes across the stiff carpet was the only solid sound to reach her ears, but despite being unable to see or hear anything in the darkness, she could feel something.

They were being watched.

The wind whispered, skirting through the house through an open window to her left, ruffling the curtains there.

Scully wandered forward, crossing into the small kitchen with her gun held tightly. It was dark, but empty.

She stepped forward, trying to get her bearings, and that's when she saw it. Scully recoiled as a thin wisp of a shadow streaked past her.

As she raised the beam to track the shadow, the door behind her slammed shut, rocking her forward. Scully spun around, Mulder's reassuring presence no longer by her side, and grabbed at the door handle.

"Scully?" Her name reached for her through the heavy wood, followed by the pounding of her partner's fists against the door.

She jerked the handle back and forth. "I can't open the door," she reported, scanning the dim room around her for unexpected visitors.

Scully threw her weight against the wood ineffectively. A low, familiar growl stopped her cold, and Mulder's pounding on the door stopped with her.

A moment's pause and a rapid visual sweep of the room informed her that the sound wasn't coming from her side of the door.

The growl twisted into a jarringly loud barking, joined in chorus by the violent snarls of another dog. Black dogs. Hellhounds. Whatever the hell they were, Scully wasn't particularly desperate for a definitive title, but her desperation to get out of here was reaching a sudden peak.

Of all the rising noise from the other room, it was the absence of any sound from her partner that made her heart slam itself repeatedly into her ribcage.

She was afraid to call out to him now, and risk inciting the dogs. But this wasn't real, couldn't be real.

Yet her arm still throbbed and she'd autopsied one of the victims only this morning—yesterday morning? Oh god.

She stared at the closed door for a moment laying her palms flat against it when she heard him shout—distress, pain, fear, she could no longer tell the difference, but there was a scuffle of movement on the other side. She banged her fists against the door.

The heat was so thick and concentrated in this room, she could hardly breathe. Her breath came in short gasps as her fingers wrapped tightly around the hilt of her gun, faster than she could consider the action. Scully aimed, firing one resounding shot at the doorknob that lit the room in a brief flash, jumping back when all it did was ricochet.

The growling ceased. The deafening sound of her heartbeat replaced it. She was about to call out to Mulder again when something stirred in her peripheral vision. She turned with the flashlight, and this time the beam exposed the stoic face of child.

Scully wasn't sure what to say, or do, so she stared, unable to believe that this was the girl she'd seen intubated and balancing on the constant brink of death. She looked younger now. Her dark brown hair barely touched her shoulders. The scars that had marred her neck were absent. Somehow she had escaped the physical manifestations of the damage she had suffered.

The light made her eyes seem pale and grey, and Scully wondered absently if she had seen any pictures of this girl with her eyes open. The girl moved away, back toward the steps leading upstairs.

"Sydney?" Scully tried.

Sydney stilled.

"Sydney, why are you here?" she asked. Mulder pounded on the door, calling her name, rattling the handle.

The girl turned around. "I live here," she stated indignantly. "Why are you here?"

"I..." Scully trailed off. "I think you brought us here, didn't you?"

She shrugged noncommittally, dropping down to sit cross-legged on the floor. Her small fingers drew patterns in the sand there.

Scully knelt down across from her, setting the flashlight on the ground, its beam still trained on the strange child.

In a small voice Sydney admitted, "Maybe."

"Why?" Scully asked.

Another shrug. "There's no one here to talk to."

"You're lonely?"

She nodded, still running her fingers through the sand.

"Sydney, you have to let us leave. Please."

She pointed at Scully's arm. "The monsters did that to you?"

A fairly apt description. Scully nodded. "A monster hurt you, once, didn't it?"

She didn't reply.

Scully tried again, "I saw what it did to you. What it's done to the other people that have come here. You can stop them, Sydney. They aren't real, they can't hurt you anymore."

Mulder had quieted on the other side of the door.

"I'm scared," Sydney admitted, wiping the smudged dirt from her cheek with the back of her hand.

"You don't have to be. Your mom and dad want you back so badly," Scully replied. The ground beneath them trembled, then stilled.

"Will it hurt?" she asked.

"I don't know," Scully replied after a moment. "Your dad told us how strong you were. That you never give up."

"You found my dad?"

Scully nodded again. A picture frame fell from the wall, crashing to the ground. Scully started, looking toward the sound only to see another one follow.

"Is he okay?"

Scully's anxiety increased. She had to get through to her, but to what point and purpose? She may not even be able to end this. Ending this may not even be the escape back to reality they sought. "He misses you," Scully told her. The floor began to shake in earnest. "They both do."

The kitchen door clicked open and Mulder eased in, holding onto the doorframe for support and lowering his weapon when he saw them.

A window shattered over the sink and Mulder rushed over to her. "We've got to get out of here before the whole place falls down."

The linoleum beneath her lifted and peeled at its edges, ripping like paper down the center.

He pulled Scully up from the floor and held onto her. The flashlight rolled away, crashing into the cabinets on the other side of the room. A thin chorus of barking dogs rose above the noise.

Scully held out her hand for the girl. "It's time to wake up."

Sydney reached out as the walls crumbled and the floor fell out from under them.

...

_Wednesday  
July 31st, 1996_

_Unnamed Road  
Southeast Coconino County, Arizona  
5:44 a.m._

Pink and orange hues spread like thin paint across the horizon, reaching out to push the night back.

For the first time in days the air was still, but the earth was in motion. Cactus Wrens fluttered noisily across the sky. The desert had swallowed the rain, leaving only the drops on their rental car as evidence that it had ever poured in the first place.

This was never how Scully had imagined her life. Yet, here she was, standing in the sunrise in the middle of nowhere with the undeniable sensation that this was exactly where she was supposed to be.

The car door opened and Mulder emerged, moving to stand next to her and lean against the hood of the car. She sat with him, exhausted but alert. Sleep had been far from restful.

They watched in companionable silence as the sun rose slowly over the desert, glinting off the sand.

…

_Wednesday  
July 31st, 1996_

_Unnamed Road  
Southeast Coconino County, Arizona  
7:13 a.m._

When Mulder finally came through the connecting door Scully was laying on her bed, looking comfortably dressed with her hair still wet from the shower. Miles from the pale and fevered deaths-door look she had been sporting.

Mulder set a plate of sugar cookies on the side table and dropped down beside her, shaking the bed frame. He was already envious of the dry sheets—his were still soaked through. She tilted her head to look over at him.

Sunlight streamed in through the window, scattering across the carpet.

"Well?" she asked.

Mulder rolled onto his side, propping his head up on his hand.

"Inconclusive," he announced. "Martha stuck around to hold down the fort, though. She said Sydney had gone into convulsions and started breathing on her own. Fortunately, her doctor had just called for an ambulance, so they got her to a hospital promptly. Apparently he's no longer pissed off about our little impromptu relocation. Not that it would have mattered, anyway, the man had the emotional capacity of a brick."

"You mean when you carried his sick patient off into the dessert during a flash flood after he turned his back for a minute?"

"Yes. That. Cookie?" he offered, holding out the flower-rimmed plate. Scully rolled her eyes and lifted one from the stack. "Do you think she'll recover?"

"I don't know," Scully said, staring at the bedspread. "There was a lot of damage. Rehabilitation could take years, if it's effective at all."

"Still, they got their daughter back. That's got to mean something."

Scully nodded.

They lay quietly for a while, and Mulder watched the faded curtains behind his partner shiver as a breeze passed through them.

"Hey, Scully?" he said, stifling a yawn and lifting an arm to look at his watch.

"Yes, Mulder?"

"You know, if we leave now, we could make it to Meteor Crater by eight."

…  
Fin


End file.
